SAP India Announces Expansion Plans

by Oliver Long

SAP India plans to expand its customer base in line with its Vision 2010.

“SAP aims to increase its customer base to 15000 by the year 2010,” Alan Sedghi, president and CEO, SAP India, said. "The company is planning to tap the Fortune 2000 companies in large enterprise and 200,000 SME companies in India by 2010. We would also strengthen our regional presence by opening new offices and also by enhancing our partner and re-seller network across the country for enhanced market presence and customer outreach."

“In 2007 we aim to consolidate our leadership in the SME segment, consolidate our strength in key and emerging vertical and promote our Enterprise SOA platform", Sedghi said on the company’s plans.

Commenting after another successful year in 2006, Sedghi went on to say, "2006 was the best year for SAP India and our success was a fitting tribute to the completion of a decade of our operations in India. SAP India has won 500 new customers in 2006 and penetrated into new verticals."

SAP’s solutions no run over 1348 Indian enterprises of all different sizes including large, mid-sized and small enterprises. Key customer wins for SAP in 2006 include Kingfisher Airlines, NTPC, State Bank of India and many others. The company also managed to win back 20 clients including JK Tyre & Camlin.

With over 263 new customers on board, SAP Business-One, SAP’s solution for the small enterprises, received outstanding customer traction in the very first year of its launch. SAP also saw traction in new verticals like Public Services, Health care, Hospitals, Airports, Securities and Equity, among others. New solutions launched by SAP including CRM on Demand, GRC (Government and Risk Compliance), DUET, MDM (Master Data Management).

SAP has launched 22 e-learning centers and the company plans to increase it to 35 by end of this year.

In the retail space, SAP is planning to recruit 160 value engineers to its development center based in Delhi to focus on product development, said Colin Lian, director, Retail BD, SAP APAC .